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>>>again, there are steps people can take now, but they take some doing. for that we are joined by our friend, financial editor jean chatzky. for some people it's perlizing and they don't get into it.

>>which is part of the problem. the first thing people need to do is know what they have coming to them in terms of retirement and know what it will cost them to live. of all adult americans haven't run those calculations. if the calculations show you're not going to have enough, you need to take steps now, rather than later to improve your situation. so downsize your lifestyle. everything from the amount of money that you're spending on your cars to the amount of money you're spending on your your housing. if those smaller things don't do the trick you have to resort to drastic measures. if you need a job, you go where the job is.

>>for people discovering that it's not going to be there part of it is getting over the shock and getting to work on this.

>>this is why people don't look at the numbers. they don't want to know. that's why they don't open the 401(k) statements. you have to look at it. what was said in the piece about working a little longer and putting off
social security
. your pay-off goes up 8% for every year you put off taking it.

>>thank you for joining us. we have more retirement resources on the web. some thanks to aarp. we have put it all on nbcnightlynews.com. another